Chapter 11 · Ticking Leash

"Three minutes, Darek. If that collar hits zero, my head becomes a firework."

Lyra didn't just say it; she spat the words through gritted teeth. She was leaning against a rusted conduit, her breath coming in ragged, shallow hitches. The red LED on the steel band around her neck was blinking like a dying star, casting a rhythmic, bloody glow over her collarbone.

I didn't look at her. I was too busy jamming a jagged piece of scrap metal into the refinery's override panel. My mechanical arm hummed, the arcane reactor in my shoulder pulsing with a low, hungry heat that made the air smell like ozone and burnt copper.

"Hold your damn hair on," I snapped. "This panel is pre-Empire. It doesn't want to talk to me."

"I don't have time for your mechanical flirting with a wall!"

She lunged forward, grabbing the back of my jacket and yanking me closer. Her eyes were wild, the pupils blown wide. I could feel the heat radiating off her skin, the scent of gunpowder and something sharp, like citrus and adrenaline. She was too close.